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  • Cascading disasters: The impact of hurricane Maria and Covid-19 on post-disaster Puerto Rican migrants’ adaptation and integration in Florida
Title: Cascading disasters: The impact of hurricane Maria and Covid-19 on post-disaster Puerto Rican migrants’ adaptation and integration in Florida
Based on data from 103 surveys of Puerto Rican migrants living in Florida and 54 in-depth interviews with a subgroup of them, we examine how Puerto Ricans who left the archipelago after Hurricane Maria have navigated settlement in their new homes. In this article, we observed and classified our participants’ descriptions of how they managed opportunities and challenges regarding education, employment, and social relations, the traditional benchmarks for the assessment of societal integration. We also observed how our participants described Covid-19’s interaction with these benchmarks. We found that our participants have experienced a series of cascading disasters since 2017—namely, Hurricane Maria, the earthquakes that affected Puerto Rico starting in late 2019, the humanitarian crises that followed both disasters, and now the global pandemic. These disasters, compounded with migration, have resulted in a process of adaptation to Florida in which social and labor-market integration and the ability to nurture social ties have been significantly diminished.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1918241
PAR ID:
10395395
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Latino Studies
ISSN:
1476-3435
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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